


Keep your acquaintances closer

by VolunteerFieryDantooinian



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Essentially Hera and Kanan meet as teenagers, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-07 19:40:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13441914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VolunteerFieryDantooinian/pseuds/VolunteerFieryDantooinian
Summary: They've known each other for a little while now- just long enough to be friends, but only barely.





	Keep your acquaintances closer

**Author's Note:**

> This was written entirely on a whim; let's just say for the sake of this au that they have a year and a half-ish age difference.

Caleb-no,  _Kanan-_ couldn't count how many times he'd run into Hera at this point. Most of the time, it's not even on purpose, and it's usually at the worst possible time. He also can barely remember how they met, but he's pretty sure it all started when he helped her with a side job he'd accidentally interfered with. 

They've known each other for a while now- just long enough to be friends, but only barely. He thinks she worries about him sometimes, with his reckless tendencies and sarcastic attitude, but sometimes he thought she didn't care at all. Those were the bad days. Times had been rough recently, and he knew he'd lost weight and lost sleep because he was always on the run. 

He had the tendency of doing unsafe things, as he'd just done, and he inherently knew he'd have to call her for backup. Consequences, consequences, he thought to himself, and kept running, halfway tripping on the loose stones of the street. First he'd gotten chased by a bounty hunter for accidentally stealing her stuff, then he got chased by stormtroopers for trying to give it back to her, which made them think  _HE_ was a bounty hunter. Thank goodness bucketheads were slow.

These specific bucketheads, though, had taken a specific disliking to him, so getting caught wouldn't be a simple misunderstanding kind of deal. It would be a little closer to an absolute kriffing fiasco, with the best-case outcome being him getting beaten up. He'd honestly rather be caught by the bounty hunter. 

Speaking of which, when he glanced behind him, the bounty hunter was gone, leaving only the buckets chasing him. Good. He was feeling annoyed today, and he felt a little bit like messing around with them. He knew it was a bad idea, he really did, but why couldn't he have some fun for a change? 

Kanan kept on running- there were only 2 of them still chasing him, thank the force. He hadn't accounted for being out of breath- he was in great shape, being a 17 year old force user, but running for that long in his binder had him a little winded.  He'd been wearing it too long lately, which heightened the problem drastically. It didn't help that he hadn't slept nearly enough. He slid and turned into an alley, only to discover it was a dead end. He could probably climb it, but not if they shot him down. Kanan turned to face the troopers.

He put his hand to his belt for his blaster, but before he could do anything one of the troopers rammed him in the face with the butt of their blaster. It wasn't hard enough to knock him out, but it was enough to hurt. 

"Put your hands up, kid." He warned, and Kanan dropped, clutching his bloody nose and silently dialing Hera on his comm unit with their emergency code. She knew to head to his location immediately. Thank the force he was used to close combat. Quickly, he reached out with the force to tip over an already unstable sheet of metal that fell with such a loud crash it even surprised him.

Both of the troopers turned around and that gave him enough time to be able to kick one of them in the back and flip them, throwing them against the wall. He managed to elbow the other one in the ribs, not quite as hard as he would have liked, not quite hard enough to hurt him. He tried to go for his wrist to flip him, and nearly managed to, but not before the trooper hit him in the chest with the butt of his blaster and sent him sprawling. His vision doubled as he coughed, wind successfully knocked out of him. He struggled to breathe for a few seconds before pulling himself together, getting to his feet and trying to turn and run.

It didn't quite work out how he would have liked. Instead of smoothly darting out of the way, the hard hit had slowed his reflexes just enough so that he didn't predict the trooper swinging his blaster around and catching him in the side of the head, throwing him against the wall.

A loud crack resounded throughout the alley and he sank dizzily to the ground, losing consciousness too quickly for him to catch himself. He felt someone grab his arm roughly, then heard a loud noise and a thud. The hand on his arm was gone, and the last thing he heard was someone calling his name.

 

 

 

~~

 

When he came to, he fully expected to be in a cell somewhere, or beat up and in a dumpster. Instead, he had genuinely no idea where he was. There was a soft hum of machinery surrounding him, and he could vaguely feel something on his face. He didn't want to open his eyes, but when he tried to talk he just started coughing, vague panic gripping him. Everything hurt, and his head was spinning.

"Kanan." A familiar voice breathed a sign of relief. He opened his eyes and Hera's face swam into view, green eyes soft with relief. "Oh, thank the force. I thought you were dead." She exclaimed rather bluntly, and he sighed, closing his eyes. The light seemed piercing, even though it was dim, and a migraine was building behind his eyes. 

He tried to sit up and was hit with a wave of intense dizziness, sinking back onto the couch in defeat. Reflexively, he touched a hand to his chest, and discovered he was wearing an unfamiliar jacket. Hera had secured an ice pack to his side with bandages. "Your shirt was covered in blood and I had to fix up your ribs," she explained, shrugging. 

Kanan sighed in relief and sank back, closing his eyes again. He knew that she knew his situation, but he refused to make eye contact with her. He wasn’t too good at the whole vulnerability thing. “How are you feeling?”

”Bad.” He managed, and launched into a coughing fit, ribs twinging in pain as he halfway doubled over. Kanan frowned as his nose started to drip blood again. Hera handed him a tissue, and he pressed it to his nose gratefully. They sat like that for a while, and he eventually descended into a chilled, dizzy trance, half asleep, half shivering. It was always cold on the Ghost, but when you didn’t have any energy, it was a lot easier to get cold. 

Hera took notice of this, getting up and dragging a blanket out of the supply closet. She wordlessly wrapped it around him like a cloak, and he pulled it close to him. 

“What even happened?” Hera asked quietly, frowning down at the floor. He frowned back. 

“Misunderstanding with the bucket-heads.” He whispered, trying to talk as little as possible. She chuckled a little and nodded. 

“I’m never letting you out of my sight again if you keep doing shit like that,” she muttered, and smiled softly.

Maybe she did care about him after all.

“I think you’ve got a concussion. You should be good to sleep, if you aren’t having trouble speaking or thinking and all that stuff. You need it,” Hera looked him in the eyes for a minute, hesitating. There was a beat of silence, then another. “I really was worried, you know.” She put her hand on his arm, and he had a small freakout, but he was too dizzy and tired to care. She didn’t move her hand.  

He just laid there for a while, not thinking, just trying to sleep, and found it easier than he thought. Soon enough, he was drifting off, and he let the darkness of sleep take him. 

 

The next time Kanan woke up, he knew something was inherently wrong. He felt sick and dizzy and just.. Wrong, like something was creeping through his body, snaky tendrils of dread surrounding him like the coils of a serpent. Dread or dysphoria or whatever it was, something was off. Hera was half asleep on the floor, and he was lying in a real bed now, blankets tucked around him and more ice at his side. He let out a tired, unhappy sound and curled up a little more. 

"You're alright," she told him, and he believed her, settling back down. He barely noticed when she took his hand, ran a gentle hand through his hair. There was something immensely calming about her presence, but he didn't know quite what it was.

With that, he finally fell into real, deep sleep, and knew that he had perhaps found his place.

Maybe he had always known it would be here.

 

 

 

-

**Author's Note:**

> Yikes, another really short fic. I'm off my game, folks! Please let me know if you enjoyed, and if you want more Kanera content from me.


End file.
